So I find myself grocery shopping late at night, and I was hungry. I grab a jar of pickles and start eating them. I too love the pickle juice, and I thought about this post. I drank it, after eating the pickles.

Saline laxative, anyone?

Unfortunately the whole jar was much like a magnesium citrate bottle, except much tastier… unexpected side effect of too much sodium perhaps?

Maybe. But I don’t know for sure. It’s never had that happen to me.

Stephen

Your depth of musical knowledge vastly exceeds mine. I really appreciate the recommendations because I love to track down new music. I hate to admit that I don’t know any of the composers you mentioned except for Philip Glass, whom I’m not particularly a fan of (but, then, I haven’t heard the specific pieces you mentioned), and Gubaidulina, whom I find a little too discordant for my unsophisticated ear. Thanks again for all the recommendations. I’m keenly interested – based on your review – to track down the pieces by Arvo Part.

* My darling husband passed out and keeled over several months back, scaring the ever-loving crap out of his wife. Called 911, went to the ER, had a bunch of tests run, and what they came up with was that he was hyponatremic. We don’t avoid salt at all, but we eat so little processed stuff that we get less salt than most Americans, I’d bet. Plus, of course, eating low carb we don’t retain sodium. The rest of the summer he drank water with a pinch of salt in it before exercising or doing yard work.

* I like chicken bones, or at least those pin-like bones in wing tips. When they’re roasted crisp, I’ll chew ‘em right up. Yummy. The rest of my chicken bones I save to boil for broth.

* I don’t make or eat a lot of low carb baked goods, except when I’m working on recipes for a book — I’d generally rather have eggs for breakfast than pancakes or waffles or whatever. But I do get good results with almond meal (or pumpkin seed meal) and vanilla whey protein, and I don’t see why this is less “real” than the standard wheat flour. I think my stuff tastes better, too. Goes without saying (though I’ll say it) that it keeps me full a heckuva lot longer, and doesn’t crash my blood sugar.

Had your husband followed my lead and drunk pickle juice regularly, he would have avoided a trip to the ER.

Two good ones are the one by the LA Master Choral and the one by Britten Sinfonia and Polyphony. Two completely different sounds, but complimentary.

http://www.westonaprice.org

I’m following a low-carb version of Nourishing Traditions and the first thing I had to toss out was my soy powder, rice protein powder, wheat protein isolate, etc…. Now I get raw milk from a local farmer and ferment my own yogurt and kefir. They make great smoothies with a big dose of beneficial bacteria.

Just a FYI, forgive me if someone already posted about this. Just looking out for your health and appreciating how you’ve looked after ours for so long.

Laurel

I’ve published the recipes for the shakes both on the posts and in a number of comments. Our protein shakes are made with whey protein only – no soy. So don’t worry about us.

MRE

My grandson (age 12) has always had a thing for pickle juice, but it just sounded so nasty to me, I usually wouldn’t give him any. I don’t know if I should tell him my nutrition hero drinks it! I read in a newspaper not long age that some company freezes pickle juice into popsicles–I think called Pickle-sicles (not sure of spelling)–and apparently they help to lower blood glucose.

I wonder if men not being able to deal with the wife being gone and having to feed themselves is rooted in childhood when mommy made all the food magically appear on the table. I’d love it if my husband were willing to learn how to be my sous-chef, but that’s not likely to happen.

My favorite remark, one that I make often, is: I’m not really a cook, but I play one on TV.

Thanks! Very interesting — this hormonal issue is just not something one hears about regularly, even in the paleo/primal/WestonPrice circles, so I eagerly anticipate your new book. So I definitely look forward to being educated about this. I don’t feel depressed, though, since I’ve certainly not expended all my options just yet. I could still try an all meat diet, fasting, etc.

Notably, except for one minor time when I was a teenager (when I ballooned from 120 to 170 pounds) I have never eaten copious amounts junk food (sugar, chips, etc.). I have ALWAYS eaten what the mainstream considers to be a healthy diet, and basically got to where I am now (which is overweight but not obese) simply by eating rice, beans, potatoes, pasta, bread and the occasional dessert. The fact that I gained so much weight on these foods is telling.

Even considering minor slips I’ve had in the past five months, though, mostly just drinking too much milk and eating too much cheese cheese, with one candy blowout (I was finishing writing a dissertation and defending, so it was a relatively stressful time) I’d consider what success I’ve had pretty remarkable because I’ve managed not to *gain* weight.

It is interesting how different people learn about low carbing. I got here because two years ago when the pet food scandal emerged, I educated myself about how bad most pet foods are for pets. After seeing the dramatic benefits for my pets with an all meat diet, I was hooked on learning about an appropriate diet for humans, too. Certainly if I was that concerned about my pets I should be even more concerned about my own diet, I thought. From my raw diet for pets contacts, I learned about the Weston A Price foundation. I kept learning from there. There is a domino effect. The one person who educated me about pet diets has spurred an information cascade that has probably now led to at least 10-20 people that I know of being educated about low carbing, through me. Who knows how many people will learn about it.

The ridiculous thing is that I had a bachelor’s and master’s degree in biology with a strong focus on evolution, well on my way to getting a PhD, and it hadn’t even occurred to me until two years ago that a grain based diet is not appropriate for carnivores. Duh.

GCBC and Nutrition and Physical Degeneration were enormous eye openers. If anything can turn you off to sugar and starch, it is reading and seeing the terrible degeneration and illness that is caused by modern foods and modern ignorance. There’s such an enormous amount of diabetes, cancer (my mother got three different cancers between the age of 25-27), Alzheimer’s etc. in my family, and I feel so wonderful on a low carb diet, that I’m not even remotely tempted to go back to my high carb ways. Ever. Even if I am not losing weight quickly. Yesterday we had to go to McD’s and my partner ate the hamburger with bun, a big coke full of sugar and medium fries. Forget the weight issue, all I have to do to keep from eating fries is to imagine myself coming down with cancer.

What upsets me most is that the medical community is so ignorant of these basic facts that are of such crucial importance to the longevity, health, and happiness of all humankind. I would imagine it is the biggest scam in the history of medicine. It’s very upsetting to see so many of my family members refuse to change, and suffer greatly for it (my father has had the same cancer twice now, I wonder if low carbing could have prevented these cancer occurrences and the recurrence) due to modern ignorance on the part of the medical profession. I’ve tried telling my boyfriend’s statinated father and my diabetic grandfather (who has also had two cancers) about this stuff but the lowfat propaganda is so enormous it is almost beyond hope for them. I will try once more with Christmas gifts of Protein Power and then that’s it.

Thankfully for most of us who are either young or with open minds, it is not too late.

I was curious about your deletion of the corn from your veggies, it didn’t look like much. Are you always that rigorous? Thanks for everything.

Nah, I’m not always that rigorous. I just don’t particularly like corn, so I figure why waste the carbs on something I don’t really like. Plus, I’ve been doing this kind of dieting for so long that I’m pretty much on auto pilot. For example, I don’t even think about it when I get a salad with croutons – even if there are just a couple. I remove them all without even thinking about it.

Dr Eades, that was one of your comments in one of the previous posts…

I would LOVE to hear what MD has to say about this. I’ve been on a ketogenic diet (with a few minor slips) for about 5 months now. Occasionally my carb intake has been about 15% of daily caloric intake (I track this all with a spreadsheet) but most of the time it is really down around 8%, often lower. I’ve lost around 10 pounds during this time. I weighed 164 and now weight 154. Based on your body fat calculators and I estimate I should weigh around 125-130, which seems about right based on what I used to weigh about 10 years ago and weighed as a teen. I’m 33 and have been between 145 to 155 for the past 4 years or so.

I don’t exercise, so I’m hoping that some weight training and fasting will help break me out of this plateau. I’m also cutting out cream in my coffee and hoping that helps. I’m finding it much more difficult to lose weight this time around, and being slightly older. I wonder if that might not have something to do with hormones (I’m female) so I’d love to hear what MD has to say about this. I’ve gained and lost this 30 pounds 2-3 times now over the past 15-17 years. I guess that may have something to do with it as well.

Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger on this – it’s a common problem, especially with women. As I wrote, there is a fair amount about hormones in the new book, but I’m trying to get MD to post more. Maybe once she’s past this Messiah gig we’ll all get her back.